M. Gary

I was greatly saddened a couple of days ago to learn of the passing of an old friend, M. Gary.

Herve Gary was a local farmer and I often turned to him to help me along as I struggled to merge my habits from gardening in the United Kingdom into those needed to grow vegetables in rural south west France.

I first met M. Gary just a few weeks after I moved here back in 2004 and over the years he gave me a tremendous amount of help and support.   I often visited his farm, which is just along the road a little, and marvelled at his whole approach to a very simplistic way of farming with his dog and chickens roaming unhindered in his yard.   I remember going there one day to collect some eggs.   As I approached I saw M. Gary’s head peering out of a deep hole.   He explained that he was setting up a new kitchen garden, nearer to the farmhouse and the hole was to bury compost to enrich the soil

Most people would, today, recognise his methods as “organic” although, when I once chatted to Herve about this he brushed aside the label “Organic” saying that he didn’t “do organic farming” as there were far too many rules and restrictions.    However, when I then asked if he used any chemicals on his farm, he simply asked me why he would need to buy chemicals when he produced everything he needed for the land.    

I often used to see him tilling the land on a field across the road using just a hoe.   He would be toiling away in the heat of midday wearing his trade mark cap

M Gary was 91 this year and continued to farm up until a few weeks ago when he fell ill.

I have many happy memories of Herve and will miss him a great deal.  I really regret not having a photo of him.

A Kitchen Garden in ....

The kitchen garden in France has been left to more or less look after itself for a few weeks whilst I visit friends and family in the UK.

Recent events made it necessary for me to to visit a property I own in the UK and I decided to turn the trip into a longer vacation and visit both family and friends, at the same time.   I shall be here until into the new year when I shall return to the garden in France and try to make a more concerted effort to write on here again.

I arrived in the UK recently and was greeted by some pretty awful weather.   Those that follow the UK news will have heard of the devastating floods that came to Cumbria during November and my thoughts are with all the displaced people that live in that region.  My own family hail from a neighbouring county and I have an uncle who currently lives in Cumbria and has been affected by the flooding, although not to the terrible extent that so many people have suffered.   Apart from the obvious suffering of people losing their possessions during the floods, my heart also goes out to them as they lose a much less newsworthy but equally important thing....their gardens, many of which will have been under several feet of water for many days.

The property in France is some two and a half hours drive from the coast and one of the joys of being here is the ability to walk down to the beach on a regular basis.  During some of the recent storms, when winds in excess of 100mph (160kph) lashed the coast in this part of England , I was truly impressed by the raw energy of the waves crashing along the coastal defences and throwing spray high, high into the air.  One day I walked to the cliff, intent to take a path down it to the foreshore but the winds were so strong I was unable to stand as I neared the edge of the cliff and decided that I would be more than foolish to attempt the path in such conditions.

During this sudden, unplanned, vacation, my own garden is being looked after by a good friend who is also keeping me abreast of developments by email.

Whilst I'm in the UK, I'm trying to find time to help out in the gardens of my family and perhaps even some of my friends will be brave enough to let me loose!!!!!!

I know it's a bit early, but my access to the Internet is quite limited whilst I'm here, so I'm going to take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy Christmas, great New Year celebrations and a wonderful 2010.  Many thanks for reading this blog during 2009 and I am looking forward to seeing you and hearing your comments during 2010

Another Pech Bessou Gourmet Evening

Saturday night was the date for another gourmet evening at one of our local vineyards.  I wrote about this annual event last year and you can read that post here

For these evenings, which are very popular in this part of France, you wander along, taking your plate, knife and fork with you, and of course, the all important wine glass and then you sit at one of the communal tables and eat what ever produce has caught your eye and you have bought.  The local farmers bring their produce, transformed into delicious dishes....

This year, our local pork farmer brought his mobile barbecue set up and produced delicious escalope of pork, pork chipolatas and Saucisse de Toulouse, a beautiful thick sausage, very similar in texture to a Cumberland Sausage.    Sauscisse de Toulouse is my favourite so that part of the decision making was easy.  The meat, which was cooked simply in its own juices was soooo good and was accompanied by a fried potato and onion dish, pomme sarlataise.

Next came the question of a starter and as many of you will know, when I spied "foie gras de canard", I was sunk.   On this occasion the foie gras was served on a simple slice of bread and accompanied by the most exquisite apple segments, which had been delicately sautéed in white wine. Another tour of the stalls revealed a cheese producer from the Pyrenees with a superb creamy Brebis.

Brebis is the name given to a cheese made from sheep's milk and the Pyrenees are famous in France for this particular type of cheese.

Just desert left to choose and with two excellent choices what could I do but opt for both, sharing them around the other guests at our table.

Some of the tastiest strawberries I have yet eaten this year, and yes, that includes those I pulled from my own garden, had been grown within a few miles of the event and were being sold by the grower, and a tourtiere.  A kind of Apple tart......with attitude....  it's covered in layer after layer of the thinnest crispiest pastry flakes....

Of course, to wash this all down, the hosting vineyard were selling their own wines, by the glass or by the bottle...  I opted for a bottle of Red and a bottle of Rosé to share at the table.

And finally, the entertainment.  My favourite local band. Les Tourist's provided their own brand of music, humour, excellence and just occasionally, total anarchism.  Their rendition of classic French and English songs was wonderful and to hear three French lads playing and singing classic Beatles tracks, to visitors who had just arrived from Liverpool, was something never to be forgotten....  Up on the stage they continued with a fabulous version of the Blues Brothers Everybody needs Somebody.  If ever you are in this part of France. make sure to catch this band.

What an evening, thanks go to Sylvie and Pascal of "Clos du Pech Bessou".  Their web site says that they are concentrating on production of high quality wines....  I believe they have achieved the production of high quality evenings as well.

M. Gary

When I moved here a few years ago, I became the owner of the garden and a couple of fields. I was very soon introduced to Monsieur Gary, the farmer who worked these two fields. M. Gary doesn't pay any rent for these fields as, under French law, it becomes complicated if he does, but as I have no desire to take on the task of managing them, I'm happy for him to relieve me of this work.

M. Gary is now 86 and recently, following a small heart attack, decided it was time to wind down his farming activities.  Part of the winding down process was to return to my care one of the two fields he tended.  This is the location of the new vegetable garden.

Over the years, we have become very friendly with M Gary and have, from time to time, been delighted by the gift of a melon or some other thing he has grown.  M Gary tells me he isn't an organic farmer, he just doesn't use anything manufactured on his land, preferring his own compost, his own farmyard manure and saving, from one year to the next, his own seeds. He's not allowed to put the "Agricole Bio" symbol on his produce because he isn't licensed, but to my mind, he is just as much, if not more, of an organic farmer as anyone.

Because he has been farming in this area longer than I have been alive he has become a constant source of advice and information to me, and so it was, that when we decided we needed some old straw and some farmyard manure, Kate and I paid him a call.

Once we had made him understand our needs he quickly offered to drop off a bail of straw next time he was passing and he also said we were welcome to collect a trailer full of his farmyard manure, although it was fresh!!!!! Whilst we were chatting, Kate asked if he had any eggs but he sadly explained that he didn't have any available at the moment.

The next day we drove up into his farm where we found him standing in a hole almost as deep as he was tall.  He explained that since our visit he had decided to make a new vegetable patch and that he was digging a hole to plant one of the trees that would form the periphery. He pointed to the others he had already planted and showed where the rest were going. We continued on our way and soon had a trailer full of straw and manure just waiting to be composted.

Back at the garden we were able to unload the trailer into the new compost bin we had built....  one of a row of four!!!

The next day we were again working in the garden when M Gary appeared with his tractor and our bail of straw....  I hadn't realised quite how big a commercial bale of straw is these days.... but we soon had it in position alongside the compost bins. In the conversation that followed, M Gary proudly announced that if we called up later that evening he would have some eggs for us.

As the afternoon's work drew to a close, Kate announced that she was off to make a curry and I decided this was a good time to go and collect our eggs.

As dusk fell I drove into his yard and saw him in a barn illuminated by two very old, very dim, light bulbs.  This was a barn I had never been in before and I soon discovered why.   As I walked in, M Gary was sitting on a low stool, on the far side of a large cow, which he was milking.  I didn't even know he still owned any cows, but he soon informed me, as I watched him milk, that it was his last cow and that it was to go on Sunday,  as he was no longer going to keep cows.

If I can manage it, I shall go to the farm tomorrow and watch M Gary milk his last cow for the last time. A tribute to a man who has farmed all his long life and is so much a part of our landscape.

KG Day Cocktail, 2008

 

Several people have asked me for the recipe for the Crystal Blue Cocktail, I served at Kitchen Garden Day, 2008 and I'm pleased to pass it on...

The recipe is given by volume so use any measuring cup to produce the amount you think you will drink!!!!  There are a total of 14 units of measure in the recipe....

2 Tequila 2 White Rum 1 Blue Curacao 1 Cane Sugar Syrup 8 Schweppes Tonic

Be careful though. The drink is very pleasant but all that Schweppes can give you a false sense of security.... I hope you enjoy it....

There are a lot more photos from the KG Day 2008 event in our web album.  Just follow the photos link in the sidebar.

Kitchen Garden Day 2008 France

About 30 people turned up here on Sunday to celebrate Kitchen Garden day with me.

Kitchen Garden Day is a celebration of local food instigated by Kitchen Gardeners International. It takes place on the fourh Sunday in August and is celebrated all around the world.  I know that year it was celebrated in the USA, Pakistan, UK, Norway, and two states in Australia as well as here in France.

For our celebration, we organised a meal at lunchtime which was held in the garden.   Everyone who came brought some food to share, made either from produce from their garden or from something farmed locally.

On arrival, guests were served with a special KG Day cocktail which had been dreamed up by Michael, the photographer and myself.  I was looking for some connection with the earth and eventually came up with this crystal blue cocktail, which was deliciously lovely!!! but which also represented what our oceans would look like if they and the atmosphere were less polluted.  Continuing with the sea theme. we served aperitifs with farmed smoked salmon.

Here in France people tend to organise their food into distinct course and I have started to think that way myself... So although I broke the dishes down into courses, really it was just a superb buffet.  There was so much good food it's impossible to list it all and I may well have forgotten something.. but it was all very tasty and very beautifully presented.

 

 

One of the things that the Perigord region is famous for is duck.  So for our local starter we had a duck liver mousse served with some homemade multigrain and muesli bread....

Guests arrived from all directions and even the gardener turned up.

The meal continued with barbecued pork for the omnivores amongst us and a delicious mushroom  and aubergine quiche.  The quiche was made by one of our guests and the pork was reared, slaughtered and cured right here in our little community.

I was surprised at the range of ages of people attending with the seniors in their 80's happily joining in the fun with some of those a fraction of their age.  The youngest person in attendance was minus 3 months but seemed to be enjoying the food pretty well!!!!

The meal finished off about 6pm after everyone had eaten some of the delicious range of desserts, brownies, chocolate chip cookies, rhubarb crumble, fruit tart, rhum baba, cherries in juice and of course, all home made....

Thanks to Roger Doiron of Kitchen Gardeners International setting aside this day to give people all round the world the chance to celebrate together and get just a little bit closer to the planet we live on... and to think, I almost forgot my friend Bernard, who provided the wine, Bergerac AOC Rouge 2007 from his vineyard less than ten miles down the road

 

Scary Tree

We had some friends visiting a few weeks ago, they are a lovely couple who run a pub in the UK.

They were here for about a week and spent a lot of time in the garden, sitting, reading, sunbathing, wandering about and just generally relaxing.

One evening, we were chatting and the girl suddenly said "I love the garden but I'm not very keen on 'scary tree'!"

I wasn't aware that we had a scary tree so I pressed for an explanation. 

It turns out that the biggest fir tree in the garden was "scary tree".  It has some big limbs fairly low down and they come more or less horizontally out from the trunk.   In the photo, you can see one of them.

In the wind they move up and down a bit and appear to be beckoning - hence the name - scary tree.

I thought of this again the other day and mentioned it to another friend who is much more at one with nature and likes the idea of talking to the animals...

She said:  I think that tree sounds like a loving tree, with its arms outstretched and whispering sweet nothings in the breeze....

So let me know  -  is it Scary Tree or Loving Tree - I know which I have chosen!

Marché Gourmande d'Eyrenville

This was just a little local market.   Eyrenville is our nearest village and has a few houses and a church - that's it! About 100, maybe less, people live there.  We went with another English couple and a French couple. 

There were just 8 stalls, all selling food which you could eat at the tables and benches they had filled the square with.  You took your own plates, glasses knives and forks, chose a spot at a table and then walked around choosing what to eat.   I guess about 300 people turned up.  I had a trio of things for starter which we shared, 1/2 a small charentaise melon, with the seeds scooped out and replaced by the sweet dessert wine that is made here.  I also shared a platter of mixed patés and a lovely salad - yes of course the patés were all duck!!! and I at last did something I have not got around to before.  I had snails!!!!

This was the first time I had eaten snails.  I enjoyed them - funnily enough one of the guests I had gone with with asked me if I would share some with her because the smallest portion was 2 dozen and that was too many for her - so I said yes and we bought them.  I took a dozen and she took a dozen, out of the tub of 2 dozen, so then there was only about another 2 dozen left!

I chose PORK!!!! for the main course which was served  with delicious potatoes fried in pork dripping.  After that we just had dessert - fruit tart!!! There were lots of other things I could have had and it was fun walking round and looking at everything and chatting to the producers.  My friend Sylvie was there.  She owns a vineyard right here - In fact her land backs onto ours I think - and was selling her wine as well as water and bread.  And then after eating  we just sat in the sunshine and listened to the music - there was a good band but not my favourite one this time - and finished the wine!

The square is in the centre of the tiny village with the church on one corner and  houses around the sides.   I sat looking at the church, my mind drifting to somewhere far away, full of good food, good wine and good company.   Quite suddenly, the whole of the church lit up as the bright golden evening sun reached a particular point where it had uninterrupted access to the white stones - the stone changed colour to a vibrant gold as I looked at it.  It stayed like that for about a half an hour and then the stones changed back to their normal hue as the sun set.

It provided a rather breathtaking end to a superb evening. 

Friends

I spent a day in my garden today, all alone.

I moved a couple of tomatoes in to their new position, checked on what was happening with the other tomatoes, had a look at the lettuce, and the beans, and the lavender, and the onions, and the garlic, and the mint, and the strawberries. It all seems to be hopping along fairly happily, except for the melons which aren’t. I need to prick out (repiquage in French) some lettuce which I will grow on a bit longer yet and I need to sow something to go into the bed when the potatoes come out in about a month or so’s time.

This all took me a couple of hours.

Sadly the rest of the day has been spent doing one of THOSE jobs. You know, the jobs that you only do when you really can’t come up with any more valid reason not to do it. Actually, once I get into it, I don’t mind it too much, but the thought of starting always gets me running to find something else desperately needing attention.

Today, it came down to the job or washing the car, and as washing the car might be the only job I like less, I bit the bullet.

The job I’m talking about is weeding. I really don’t like weeding. It seems such a shame to pull out all those very healthy plants to leave the ones I have chosen to grow a little freer. After all, maybe the weeds have more right there than my plants!

But anyway, I buckled down and tackled the job which was, of course, now far bigger because I have been remiss in tackling it earlier.

As I said, in fact, once I get down to it, I really don’t mind weeding.

I sit in the garden and talk to the plants, alone with my thoughts. Sometimes friends from all over the world drop by, in my head, and we chat a while and then they continue on there own way. And all the while., I’m pulling little weeds and grabbing handfuls of big weeds and consigning them to the bucket which is to become their new home for an hour or two.

Sometimes, I just talk away to the plants, coaxing my little offspring to survive the rigours of life out here in the fast lane, sometimes congratulating them for doing really well, sometimes nagging them to pull themselves together and get on with it – whatever "it" is.

And then sometimes I talk to the weeds, those very plants that have dragged me out there in the first place. But I’m not so kind when I talk to the weeds. Some are just naughty little children and a sharp word and a gentle tug and they have succumbed – moved into their new home the weed bucket.

Others are a bit more persistent and have fought valiantly in order to try and prevent me pulling them out. "Ha", they say, "I’m so bound around this delicate little plant that you won’t dare to try and pull me out!"

But, they don’t know me, and I persevere, sometimes breaking the weed into a lot of pieces to free my protégé. Sometimes getting it just right so that it uncoils itself and falls helplessly in to that waiting bucket. Sometimes just screaming and shouting until it gives up and leaps into the bucket on it’s own.

Then there are the friends who stop by. I said before, friends come and we chat away. There are friends I have met on holiday, friends I have met at work. Friends I have met in their gardens and friends that I have met in my own, and they all stop by during the course of the day for a quick chat, a quick joke, sometimes a brief update on their lives and it’s all, in my head.

Then there are the distant friends.

Friends I have met who have gone away, I have one in China, at the moment and another in New Zealand, one in Perth (Australia (not Scotland)) and many others in various other countries.

Some of these distant friend are friends I have met in the 10% of the world’s countries that I have visited, some recently, some many years ago, but friends the same and they arrive in my head for a fleeting moment.

My family sometimes drop by and I catch up on the latest family gossip.

And then there are all those friends I have never met. Friends from reading this blog. Friends from gardening and other communities here on the Internet. Friends and business acquaintances known from letters and telephone calls but not face to face.

And they all drop by during my day alone in my garden

And then there are those very special friends who drop by. They know who they are, they don’t need to be told. And when they drop by, I often forget to carry on weeding, getting so wrapped up in their conversation everything else goes out of my head,. They sit on the grass alongside me and we chat about this or that, they advise me on this and that, they even nag me about this and that. They’re the ones who’s hands I hold or who get a little kiss when they leave. They are the special friends, in my head

Like I said, I don’t like weeding, but it does afford me the opportunity to catch up with all my friends, old and new, close and far.

I spent a day in my garden today, all alone, but being visited, in my mind, by all my friends. If you are a friend thank you for dropping by today. If you’re not yet a friend then I know you are really, as you are here, reading this. Think to yourself that you just need to introduce yourself and then you can drop by, in my head, and I can thank you.